Is this heaven? No it's Iowa---er, Ventura

Carl:

Helloooo from So Cal!  Ok, ok----so nearly all of the posts already have been from So Cal, but cut me some slack people, it's taken an effort to get down here from Seattle.  And all I can say is so far it's been everything I've imagined and more---beautiful sunsets, er, snaking clogged shit out of waste pipes, tasty rum runners, er, sanding deep lockers to prep them to be re-fiberglassed, and cooking shrimps on the barbie, er, eating Clif Mojo bars just to keep our blood sugars high enough to keep functioning between meals.  That said, it's still heaven---working on the plumbing, galley organizing, music compiling, dog acclimating, audio system design, etc, all seem to be pulling us together closer as a crew, and I'm loving it in general.

Point in case: Two days ago we took the boat out of the slip to test run the engine after the top engine rebuild.  The original intent of this particular mission was completed successfully---the diesel engine rumbled and ran just as it was supposed to---as for our landing back into the slip, well, let's just say that didn't go quite according to plan.

My ideal landing characteristics:

• Boat under power
• Bow goes forward into boat slip
• Smoothly glides into slip, with clean tie off

Our actual landing characteristics:

• Engine running, but boat in neutral
• Wind blew us past the slip so we couldn't pull in on our first pass
• Fended off other boats/docks with boat hook while we floated perpendicular to the way boats should move in the channel
• Andy and I jumped off the boat two slips down with the stern lines and pulled our 17-ton boat into the slip
• Boat went in stern first
• Smoothly glides into slip, with clean tie off (one outta three ain't too shabby)

And we all came out smiling.  Well---smiling and full of adrenaline---but smiling nonetheless.  What was the point of this post again?  Oh yeah, just to tell another tale of what's happening.